


The Toll of Secundarius Bell

by Aondeug



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aondeug/pseuds/Aondeug
Summary: Religion can be a source of comfort and, when beloved axioms fail to hold, a source of despair. It is the source of habits, good and bad, and routines burned in skin deep. It is a land of privately held heresies and publicly spoken dogmas. Being the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, religion is a very familiar thing to Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Herein is a collection of poems regarding her and her relationship with religion.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Paritta

Take a breath in   
_(You should never have been born)_  
Take a second one now   
_(Two hundred died for your life)_  
Take bones in hand   
_(Another may join that count soon)_  
Take to words long known   
_(You should have died back then)_  
So take a breath in   
Until you can act once again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paritta is a Pali word referring to chanting of specific Buddhist verses to ward off misfortune and to promote peace and well being


	2. Just a Man, Just God

You looked to God’s face  
Seeking the ineffable,  
Searching for a man made god  
And a god made man  
Who could turn back the clock.

You looked to God’s eyes  
Seeking what you’ve known  
From your earliest of days  
And from familiar words  
Faithfully recited every day.

You looked to God’s mouth  
Seeking impossible words  
That would confirm his right  
To that most lofty title  
And fill your aching void.

But what you saw was a man  
Standing alongside you  
And saying in human tones  
That he could not do what you asked  
Though he was God.


	3. Heresy's a Four Letter Word

The simplest rule learned  
When but a child  
Was that the door  
Needs be closed,  
Never the stone rolling  
Off and away  
Lest the end do come.

Yet when the end came  
Through twin hands  
Locked ‘round your neck,  
You sought your end  
As it lay behind stone,  
Yet what you found  
Was not that end  
But the simplest binding.

You stand now  
Before pillars of bone  
Piled up high  
With bell and toll,  
A symbol of order  
Bringing light  
To the decaying,  
The Ninth House.

Yet in secret  
You stand before Her,  
The Heresiarch in full  
Full of love unrelenting  
Though you pray  
Each and every day  
For the rock to never  
Roll off and away.


End file.
